1. Field of the Invention
Present embodiments relate to a drone device and related method. More specifically, present embodiments relate to a drone for inspection of an enclosed space and a method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
The process of inspecting enclosed spaces, for example such as a boiler of a power generating turbine, is a process which is tedious, labor intensive, and provides opportunity for injury to an inspector. During the process, a scaffold must be constructed within the interior of the boiler and along the wall perimeter of the enclosed space to inspect the burners, steam piping or tubing at multiple elevations. As a result, the scaffold must be constructed level by level upon itself to move up along the sidewalls of the enclosed space for inspection of all the boiler walls or steam tubes. This requires manpower and downtime of the boiler both of which result in lost time of operation of the turbine associated with the boiler being inspected. Typically, the inspection process cannot begin until the scaffold system is constructed at least partially. However, this construction process takes time again leading to increased outage time for the boiler.
It is desirable to have a system of inspection which may begin sooner than when a scaffold construction may be completed, in order to reduce downtime of an outage.
An additional problem with inspection of the enclosed space is that the walls are generally vertical and are lined with steam tubing and/or burners along the interior surface thereof in large part. Thus, the necessity of a scaffold system provides a landing at multiple elevations wherein an inspector may be located to perform the inspection. Otherwise, the interior of the boiler is generally without landing surfaces upon which an inspector may perform the inspection thoroughly at multiple elevations.
Accordingly, it is desirable to overcome this lack of horizontal landing surface and other deficiencies with known inspection processes in order to provide a thorough inspection of the interior of a boiler while reducing downtime associated with an outage.